No concession call

On election night, Mitt Romney called Barack Obama to concede. Shortly after, Romney gave his concession speech, Obama addressed his supporters. This is the tradition of every election, except 2000, which went decidedly off script.

Do such concessions happen on the local level?

Not necessarily.

Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline, said he got the phone number of his 36th Senate District opponent, Bill Albracht, R-Moline, and put the scrap of paper in his front pocket on election night.

Jacobs said he was prepared to call his rival if it became clear Albracht would win.

As it turns out, Jacobs won handily with 55 percent of the vote.

Albracht, a Vietnam veteran and retired Secret Service agent, congratulated Jacobs on his website, but never called the senator, who has served since 2005.

Jacobs said that if he had lost, he would have resigned early so that Albracht would gain seniority over other freshmen. Such seniority could result in better committee assignments.

"It would have been important for our district," Jacobs said.

We published a number of stories on the campaign because the 36th District includes most of Whiteside County.

One of my stories concerned a Jacobs campaign assertion about Albracht's position on Medicaid co-pays. While the assertion was true, it left out an important fact – that Jacobs had essentially supported the same thing earlier this year.

In other words, the story was arguably positive for Albracht.

I left message after message with Albracht. His campaign manager told me her candidate had many events and was too busy to talk.

Jacobs, on the other hand, was the opposite. I could reach him on his personal cellphone. If he didn't answer right away, he'd call back soon after.

Would Albracht have become more accessible if he had been elected?

I don't know the answer to that question. I couldn't reach him.

David Giuliani is a reporter for Sauk Valley Media. He can be reached at dgiuliani@saukvalley or at 800-798-4085, ext. 525.